James Buren has announced the availability of the first pre-release of Frugalware Linux 1.7 (code name "Gaia"), a general-purpose distribution targeting intermediate and advanced Linux users: "The Frugalware developer team is pleased to announce the immediate availability of Frugalware Linux 1.7pre1, the first technical preview of the upcoming 1.7 stable release. Here are some of the major improvements, fixes and updates since 1.6: package updates - Linux kernel 3.3, KDE 4.8.1, LibreOffice 3.5.1, Firefox 11.0, Thunderbird 11.0, SeaMonkey 2.8; kernel modules are now compressed with xz; GRUB 2 has replaced GRUB 1; text installer can now install to GPT labels; pm-radeon for setting Radeon KMS power management at start-up; phc package family brings experimental CPU undervolting." Here is the brief release announcement with an additional link to a more complete changelog. Download: frugalware-1.7pre1-x86_64-dvd1.iso (4,250MB).

Frugalware Linux is an independently developed general purpose desktop Linux distribution designed for intermediate users. It follows simple Slackware-like design concepts and includes the "pacman" package management utility from Arch Linux.

After long development delays and massive infrastructure troubles, the Frugalware development team has finally released Frugalware Linux 2.0, a general-purpose distribution for intermediate and advanced Linux users: "Frugalware 2.0 (Rigel) released. The Frugalware developer team is pleased to announce the immediate availability of Frugalware Linux 2.0, our twentieth stable release. No new features have been added since 2.0rc2. If you didn't follow the changes during the release candidate releases, here are the most important changes since 1.9 in no particular order: package updates - Linux kernel 3.14.19, X.Org Server 1.15.2, KDE 4.14.3, GNOME 3.12.2, Xfce 4.10.1, LXDE 0.99.0, LibreOffice 4.3.3, Mozilla Firefox 35.0.1, Chromium browser 39.0.2171.96. New features: MATE 1.8.1. Please refer to the Frugalware Rigel ChangeLog for more information." Here is the brief release announcement. Download the installation DVD image from here: fvbe-2.0-full-x86_64.iso (1,872MB, SHA1, pkglist).

James Buren has announced the release of Frugalware Linux 1.9, a general-purpose distribution for intermediate and advanced Linux users: "The Frugalware developer team is pleased to announce the immediate availability of Frugalware Linux 1.9, our nineteenth stable release. No new features have been added since 1.9rc2. Here are the most important changes since 1.8 in no particular order: updated packages - Linux kernel 3.10.17, X.Org Server 1.14.2, GNOME 3.8, KDE 4.11, LibreOffice 4.1.2, Mozilla Firefox 22.0 to name a few major components; netconfig has been replaced by NetworkManager; frugalwareutils has been replaced by the new fvbeutils; vi binary symlinks are now configurable, used to be hardcoded to their packages; old display manager legacy service has been dropped for the new systemd method of individual service files; console keymaps and x11 keymaps are now managed by the systemd method." Read the rest of the release announcement for more information. Download: fvbe-1.9-full-x86_64.iso (1,872MB, SHA1).

James Buren has announced the availability of the second release candidate for Frugalware Linux 1.9, a general-purpose Linux distribution: "This is the second release candidate for Frugalware Linux 1.9. This release fixes a number of minor issues with the installer. A case where TAB would cycle through the wrong order with the widgets in the partition formatting window is now fixed. Installer no longer relies on HOSTNAME for determining if it is within the live environment. It is now possible to skip IPv6 configuration and adding a new user. A case where a crash happened when the swap file system mount path is empty is now fixed. A missing locale file is now symlinked on new GRUB installs. It was a harmless bug, but still needed fixing. Installer now automatically starts after booting and the other TTYs have login information if you need shell access." Here is the brief release announcement. Download: fvbe-1.9rc2-full-x86_64.iso (1,872MB, SHA1).

James Buren has announced the availability of the first release candidate for Frugalware Linux 1.9, a general-purpose distribution for intermediate Linux users: "This is the first release candidate for Frugalware 1.9. Starting with this release, our old display manager legacy service has been replaced by a system where each display manager provides their own service file. You can switch to this new system by using the new dmconfig utility or through use of systemctl. Also, we have removed the vi symlinks that we used to provide. These were hardcoded to a specific editor (Vim) before. The new system is to manage these symlinks with the new viconfig utility or by manually creating the symlinks to your preferred editor. At least one bug has been fixed since last release. The system for mounting local packages to use as an install source has been redesigned to work more consistently." Read the full release announcement for more information. Download: fvbe-1.9rc1-full-x86_64.iso (1,874MB, SHA1).

James Buren has announced that the second pre-release of Frugalware Linux 1.9, a general-purpose distribution designed for intermediate Linux users, is ready for testing: "This is the second preview release of Frugalware 1.9. Starting with this release, netconfig has been replaced by our new nmconfig tool which uses the NetworkManager framework instead of our original custom network management code. This reduces the amount of custom code we must maintain for our distribution. Also of note is the fact that the entire collection of tools from frugalwareutils has been replaced by the standalone mode of the new installer. The new tools are provided by the package fvbeutils. Some other minor improvements exist, such as the installer's partitioning tool no longer exposing the boot medium as a partitionable device." Read the rest of the release announcement for further details. Download: fvbe-1.9pre2-full-x86_64.iso (1,835MB, SHA1).

James Buren has announced the availability of the first pre-release of Frugalware Linux 1.9, a general-purpose Linux distribution. This is the first-ever Frugalware release that comes in the form of a live CD/DVD. From the release announcement: "This is the first preview release of Frugalware 1.9. It also marks the first public testing for our new live CD environment, FVBE, and our new installer called fwsetup. This has been in development for 8 months already and is a compilation of 4 older projects. They are fwlive, setup, fwife, and frugalwareutils. In this new project, they are integrated so they will share a common code base. This should help avoid the fragmentation like we had with setup and fwife. The new installer should be feature complete in terms of replacing the old installer. However, some parts were removed because of disuse or just plain uselessness. And some features are entirely new, such as the keyboard layout selection that also configures your X11 XKB layout." Download: fvbe-1.9pre1-full-x86_64.iso (1,862MB, SHA1).

James Buren has announced the release of Frugalware Linux 1.8, a general-purpose distribution for intermediate and advanced Linux users: "The Frugalware developer team is pleased to announce the immediate availability of Frugalware Linux 1.8, our eighteenth stable release. No new features have been added since 1.8rc2, but 157 changes have been made to fix minor bugs. If you didn't follow the changes during the pre-releases, here are the most important changes since 1.7 in no particular order: updated packages - Linux kernel 3.7.5, X.Org Server 1.13.2, GNOME 3.6, KDE 4.9, LibreOffice 3.6.3, Mozilla Firefox 18.0.1 to name a few major components; video decoding acceleration is now enabled in most multimedia applications; CPU scaling should now work out of the box on i686 and x86_64; Mesa 7.11 drivers revived to support hardware that Mesa upstream dropped support for...." Here is the brief release announcement. Download: frugalware-1.8-x86_64-dvd1.iso (4,265MB, SHA1).

James Buren has announced the availability of the second preview release of Frugalware Linux 1.8, code name "Cinna", a general-purpose distribution designed for intermediate Linux users: "The Frugalware developer team is pleased to announce the immediate availability of Frugalware Linux 1.8pre2, the second technical preview of the upcoming 1.8 stable release. Here are some of the major improvements, fixes and updates since 1.8pre1: package updates - Linux kernel 3.6.6, X.Org Server 1.13.0, KDE 4.9.3, GNOME 3.6. New features: CPU scaling on i686 and x86_64 now works out of the box for most hardware; cpupower is now only needed if you want to change the default behavior; video decoding acceleration libraries have been enabled in most multimedia programs." Here is the brief release announcement with a link to a more detailed changelog. Those interested in testing the release can download the 64-bit installation DVD image from here: frugalware-1.8pre2-x86_64-dvd1.iso (4,281MB, SHA1).

Frugalware Linux 1.7, the latest version of the general-purpose distribution designed for intermediate Linux users, has been released: "The Frugalware developer team is pleased to announce the immediate availability of Frugalware Linux 1.7, our seventeenth stable release. No new features have been added since 1.7rc2, but 157 changes have been made to fix minor bugs. Here are the most important changes since 1.6: updated packages - Linux kernel 3.4.8, X.Org Server 1.12.3, GNOME 3.4, KDE SC 4.9, LibreOffice 3.5.4, Mozilla Firefox 14.0.1; slocate was removed and replaced by mlocate; Catalyst has dropped support for all ATI Radeon HD hardware before the 5000 series; cpupower has replaced all CPU scaling daemons; all packages that still used SysVInit have been converted to use systemd; GRUB 0.x has been replaced by GRUB 2...." The release announcement. Download (SHA1): frugalware-1.7-i686-dvd1.iso (4,278MB), frugalware-1.7-x86_64-dvd1.iso (4,284MB).